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makingmusic476 on 08 February 2010
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routsounmanman said:
lestatdark said:
routsounmanman said:
lestatdark said:
routsounmanman said:
I don't get why JRPGs get hammered for being "staple" and "need to evolve" or something, yet FPS gets off with that. And MAG scoring over FFXIII? Yeah, right!

Shhh, don't you know that FPS don't need evolution to be fun and that they can all be the same thing, or a downgrade from PC FPS's from the late 90's, early 2000? :P 

JRPG's have to evolve in each game, other wise the genre is dead, doomed, put into a grave, tossed aside and burned at the stake. 

Totally. The double standards with these "professionals" are so profound and annoying, it's getting actually funny.

It has always been like this, but now it's getting even more frustrating, since this feeling is also spreading to gamers themselves. If most of them stopped for a few moments to take a deep to the games they enjoy, they would see that they're pretty much built upon the same pillars that old games from their genre were built as well.

In the future, when current "fan favourite" genres are no longer relevant to the gaming community, we'll see how the fans from those genres will feel when they get the same double standards against them. 

The most annoying of all is this paradox:

Gamers who love JRPGs and have been playing them for a long time, don't really want a big leap or significant changes to their RPGs. People who don't play them / don't really like them, complain about them being "stuck in the past" and "archaic". Oddly, Developers try to expand their franchises to more people, listening to the latter group.

In the end, the latter, still don't get to buy/play/enjoy them, although the developer has altered the formula, whereas the first are alienated by these changes. Thus, the genre keeps bleeding it's own fanbase, while completely falling flat on expanding to an audience who'll never get into the genre after all.

PS: I've quoted you more than 10x anyone else in these forums

FPS have improved about as much as they can from a basic gameplay stand point (you shoot - not much you can do there), meanwhile JRPGs have constantly evolving gameplay, sometimes attempting (and often failing) to make the games more action based, other times providing unique twists on turned based gameplay, and in the case of XIII, providing a nice mix of preset combos and action combat.

FPS could only really improve in the one area I'd like both FPSes and JPRGs to improve: storytelling.  This is also one area in which I'd definitely label JRPGs as being"stuck in the past", simply because JRPGs these days focus more and more and lengthy cutscenes and deep, involved stories, yet the presentation and narrative found in these games have barely progressed past the level of FFX over the past decade.

XIII, however, has improved in this area considerably from what I've seen, and XII made similar advancements over its predecessor.  I'm playing White Knight Chronicles right now, and it has the same cliche moments told in an awkward manner by weak actors that I've been seeing for years.  It's really the biggest weak spot of the game.  Normally I wouldn't mind this in a game, but when the emphasis is on story and they make you watch 20+ minute cutscenes, at least make them worth watching.

Valkyria Chronicles performed quite nicely in this area, though, given its anime-ish influences.  I've heard good things about Tales of Vesperia as well.

I honestly would love to see some sort of anime/rpg cross over in the future.  Have somebody (Namco?) work with an anime studio to make a cel-shaded RPG with great gameplay and a great story told via anime cutscenes.  I believe Level 5 are doing this with Studio Ghibli for their next DS game.